Monthly Goals: July

July is here! For me, that means setting and sticking to serious goals. First off, promoting the release of my first short story, Call From The Grave, as much as I can. As I said in my previous post, I'll be finding the links and setting them up ASAP.

I'm going to be finding another editor for Needfire (the one I currently have seems to have vanished from the face of the earth) and prepping it for its planned August release. I wish I had an official date, but I don't know much about self-publishing, so I want to know how much time it will take. If I can do it in a day, then super-duper! Somehow I don't think it will be that easy.

Lately I've been struggling with some writers block as far as Cursed and Blood Moon. I'm still doing them, but I don't find myself as invested as I had been previously. Nonetheless, I'm going to soldier through to the end, and when I get to the first editing drafts, hopefully I'll be able to find the problems and fix them.

I've also begun work on a new short story/series. Mocha Memoirs, the publisher who's supporting Call From The Grave, has a steampunk airship themed series they'll be releasing sometime next year. It took a little deciding, but I had an epiphany and learned that through this series, I could work on a story I've wanted to tell since I was thirteen years old: Pirates versus vampires. Right now, I'm just working on the short story to test the idea, but whether or not it's accepted, I'll be turning it into a trilogy. I have the basic ideas right now and it will be put on the back shelf for a little bit, but I'm excited to give the concept a try now that I know what I'm doing as a writer. I honestly never thought I would be able to come back to the idea, but steampunk will let you do anything.

Finally, I think I've officially decided how I want to begin my writing career. I recently read an article on Writer's Digest that basically suggested writing and letting the agents find you. This is less traditional than the query route and could mean that it will be more years before my work is accepted by a professional agency (if it ever is), yet this also means I can build a steady following. One of my best skills as a writer is that I'm extremely prolific. When I start writing, I'm writing. Once I really get started, it's hard for me to stop, and that seems to be a vital trait for authors looking to build their reputation. I don't think I'll put out any Areios Brothers books independently, but I might for Cursed and will for single stories. All of these would be e-books, however. I know I've said that my dream is to see someone looking at one of my books on the shelf of Chapters, and it is, but digital is just so much simpler for me right now.

So my goals this month are catching up on my backlog, taking a close, serious look at the digital publishing world, coming up with future stories to publish independently, and eating some chocolate to celebrate my first published work. Yup, July will be a good month.

Amy